So now apparently we're a women's wrestling powerhouse - who knew?!
Actually thank goodness we've finally won something - the naval gazing was becoming ridiculous up here. It was front page news this morning the results of polls showing 68% of Canadians were embarrassed by our lack of medals, with everything from lack of funds, to lack of facilities to lack of government support being blamed. Another columnist said we should let immigrants get instant citizenship if a medal hope like so many other countries apparently do.
The major problem for summer Olympic sports is we're a winter Olympics focussed country. A poll before the games had something like 55% of Canadians preferring the winter games with about 25% rating the summer and winter games equally and only about 15% preferring the summer games. So with numbers like that of course there is going to be better support for the winter athletes. Plus with the legacy of the 88 Calgary winter games being first rate facilities for winter sports - the vastly improved performance of Canadians in those winter sports over the last few Olympic cycles is not surprising.
And right now almost the entire focus is on Vancouver for 2010 with the 'Own the Podium' program that has a stated goal - a challenging one - to have Canada win more medals than ANY other country in 2010. Considering that Canada did not even win one gold in Calgary - that is quite an aggressive goal for games on our soil just 22 years later. Unfortunately the summer athletes have largely been left in the wake with seemingly all our athletic focus on Vancouver and the winter games of 2010.
So the results thus far are not really all that big a surprise to Canadians who actually pay attention to these things more than one two week period every couple of years.
Most people predicted between 10-15 total medals for Canada - and that is still within range with expected medals to come in sports like rowing, canoe/kayak, diving etc. Now if halfway through the Vancouver Olympics we have no medals - well then you'll have a story - and likely 33 million people on suicide watch.
